The next chapter — or should we say heist? — from the Ocean’s franchise will drop in June with Sandra Bullock as Danny Ocean’s ex-con sister Debbie. She’ll lead a team of thieves (played by Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, and Sarah Paulson, among others) as they crash New York’s Met Gala to swipe a priceless necklace off a celebrity neck. We asked Bullock to take us behind-the-scenes of one of the most anticipated sequels in the long and checkered history of sequels.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You play Debbie Ocean, Danny’s sister. Can you share a little of your backstory?
SANDRA BULLOCK: Well not too much. I mean, I feel like we’re a Marvel film and we’re trying to at least let there be some surprises when the film comes out. Yes, I am Danny Ocean’s sister. I’ve been incarcerated for about five years and you find out why during the course of the film. I mean, that’s sort of a tiny subplot. But that’s, you know, but I’m definitely his sister and we definitely come from the same family and we’re both very good at what we do in our own special way. So you can only imagine that once I get out, that’s when the heist ensues.

Do the gals in your gang fill the archetypes that we’ve seen from the Oceans franchise?
Everyone has their specialty, yes. What’s fun is that it’s not their whole life. And they haven’t been able to do what they’re brilliant at because the industry, if you can call it the industry, the industry of crime hasn’t really allowed them to excel and execute what they’re good at. So you’ll find one who’s a stay-at-home mom with two children who sells things on the QVC. And here comes Debbie Ocean who enlists their help of them, but not because she only wants females. It’s really fun. Imagine all eight of us crammed into a makeup trailer in the morning. You think that it would be disastrous but it was heaven, all of us just sharing information, all of us doing three jobs with families, our other jobs, the juggling. And then we get to shoot this movie together.

What was the dynamic like on the set with all those female stars?
It was so great. I would say, isn’t that funny how with the guys, I don’t remember ever hearing anything about potential discord. But you so get it with women. If there’s ever more than two women in the film there’s rumblings of, “oh, they’re having cat fights.” There was nothing, because I think because of the unique situation of this and because we all are trying to achieve the same thing, we bonded pretty quickly out of necessity and just because we like each other. We all were able to fit in this trailer while we were getting fluffed and folded, and share information. I don’t know how to do this, where did you do this? Oh my God, my son needs a uniform. Oh my God, I have this great website. What do you do in this work situation? How are you internet managing? For the first time in my life I felt there was a sharing of all this information. We all looked at each other and went, why didn’t we know these things before? I realized as women we have been isolated for a while. I don’t even want to touch on that other subject, but women are now taking care of each other. We all were like, okay, let’s just take care of each other for these six months and relish this opportunity we’re being given. But we don’t want it to be just for women. This is not a man-hating. We love the men. There’s men in this movie. We love them. But this one heist needs women.

When it was announced there would be an all-female cast of Ghostbusters, those actresses were put through hell. Has it been the same for the cast of Oceans 8?
They did put them through hell. And I’m still trying to figure out why. Forget what the final product was! There were four or five of the most talented comediennes in that film. Everyone should’ve just taken a breath and said, “let’s see what happens.” It doesn’t take just five people to make a movie. It’s pretty much like around 300. So I keep reminding everybody, if you hate my film remember there’s another 299 people all around me. We’re not a reboot. We’re just a this is what’s happening in 2017. It’s not even a passing of the torch. It’s a parallel story of another family member that was raised in the same family Danny Ocean was and what happens when Debbie steps out of jail with all of these amazing, powerful women.
So you have heard some negative comments?
We got some but boy, I mean, I’ll tell you, we’ve got some feisty women that will fight right back. It’s like, let’s just take a breath and let’s just see if we come up with something fun. There should be a moratorium. There should be a rule, you’re not allowed to say anything nasty until after it comes out. Obviously that’s never going to happen.

Is this the start of something wonderful, like an Ocean’s 9 with Emma Stone or something?
How great would that be? I don’t know. I think the mindset was let’s just see if we can make this work, and let’s see if we can get the greatest actors and we did. Let’s see if we can take the original and then make our own version, sort of pay homage to the Ocean series.I don’t like sequels. Well, you know what, I don’t like the sequels that I’ve done. I mean, I should just correct that. My sequels were done in the time where it was sort of, oh, the first one worked, let’s just slap something together for the second one. And that’s not the way things are anymore. Things have changed as people realize we need to step up our game, have something as good if not better. If something strikes a chord, an Ocean’s 9 would be ideal.

]]>http://sandrabullockweb.com/oceans-8-entertainment-weekly-interview/feed0Sandra Bullock Set to Play Texas State Senator Wendy Davis In ‘Let Her Speak’http://sandrabullockweb.com/sandra-bullock-set-to-play-texas-state-senator-wendy-davis-in-let-her-speak
http://sandrabullockweb.com/sandra-bullock-set-to-play-texas-state-senator-wendy-davis-in-let-her-speak#respondSun, 12 Nov 2017 21:28:24 +0000http://sandrabullockweb.com/?p=1872

Sandra Bullock will star in the new film Let Her Speak as Democratic Texas State Senator Wendy Davis. On June 25, 2013, Davis hit the national spotlight when she staged a 13-hour filibuster to help stall an anti-abortion bill in the Texas state house. After stalling for hours, she delayed the passage beyond the midnight deadline for the end of the legislative session. The bill would have included more restrictive abortion regulations for Texas and would have closed all abortion clinics in the state.

The role seems perfect for Bullock and could become another awards play for the actress. She won her first Oscar for playing Leigh Anne Tuohy in the real-life story The Blind Side. She just finished the production on Warner Bros. Ocean Eleven spinoff, Ocean’s Eight, and is about to start filming on the set of the new Netflix move Bird Box.

Let Her Speak will cover that historic day and how a teen mom who became a Harvard-trained lawyer.

This film is based o a Mario Correa script, which will be produced by Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch, Jonathan Skukat under ShowKat productions, and Bullock. – UInterview

Sandra Bullock is set to co-produce and star in a high-concept comedy for Warner Bros., The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

Bullock will produce with Michael Bostick of Rocket Science Entertainment. Currently untitled, the project will feature a script by Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse, the married duo who wrote Parental Guidance and the upcoming Robert De Niro family comedy The War With Grandpa. The pair just wrote and directed the Michael Caine comedy Coup d’Etat, due out next year.

Warner Bros. production and development president Courtenay Valenti will oversee for the studio. Bullock realigns with Warners after just wrapping the starry ensemble spinoff Ocean’s Eight, directed by Gary Ross, as well as the hits Gravity and Miss Congeniality.

The actress next stars in Netflix’s Bird Box and the Lionsgate remake Vigilance. Bullock is repped by CAA. Addario and Syracuse are with UTA and Kaplan/Perrone. – The Hollywood Reporter

Lionsgate has purchased U.S. distribution rights to “Vigilance,” an action thriller with Sandra Bullock.

The deal was announced out of the Toronto International Film Festival. “Vigilance” follows an American who gets a job at a London armored car company that was the target of a robbery. Her motivations for working there grow more mysterious and tangled.

Josef Wladyka (“Narcos”) will direct the picture. Joel Silver, the producer of “The Matrix,” “Lethal Weapon,” and “Die Hard” franchises, is overseeing the production. Despite his earlier run of successes, Silver has had a rough spell of late, with recent films such as “The Nice Guys” and “Bullet to the Head” either disappointing at the box office or failing to hit the heights of his previous works. “The Nice Guys” did score good reviews, while Silver had a hit with 2014’s “Non-Stop.”

The deal was negotiated for Lionsgate by president of acquisitions and co-productions Jason Constantine, executive vice president of acquisitions and co-productions Eda Kowan, and executive vice president of business & legal affairs, acquisitions and co-productions John Biondo. CAA, which represents Bullock and Wladyka, brokered the deal with Lionsgate. – Variety

After a Television Critics Association panel for the new season of American Horror Story, Sarah Paulson told reporters that the heist is going to get even bigger as she goes back next week for additional shooting.

“I am actually going to do some more of that next week,” Paulson said. “They decided to add more things.”

Bullock plays Debbie Ocean, sister of Danny Ocean (George Clooney) from Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen. She also assembles a crew to pull off a heist, this time at the Met Gala in New York. The first image released shows Debbie Ocean’s eight on a subway. For Paulson, it was an empowering set to work on.

“It was extraordinary to look around the room and see Cate Blanchett, whom I’ve worked with twice now, and Sandra Bullock and Rihanna and Mindy Kaling, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Awkwafina,” Paulson said. “It felt like a really empowering place to be and really fun. We have a text chain going that’s one of the most epic things. If my phone were stolen, it would be… I’m sure I’m just inviting everyone to hack my phone now.”

There is plenty of time for additional photography, since Ocean’s Eight is nearly a year away from release. Gary Ross directs the script by Ross and Olivia Milch. Matt Damon is expected to appear in a cameo, providing more connection to the Ocean’s trilogy, and a Clooney cameo has not been ruled out.

“Bird Box”
Sandra Bullock is making her way back to a film set, this time with streaming giant Netflix. The Black List project “Bird Box,” based on the novel by Josh Malerman, currently has only Bullock attached to star, and centers on a postapocalyptic world where an alien invasion has forced humans to go on murderous rampages or die by suicide. While most survivors stay indoors, a woman and her two young companions try to navigate a river while blindfolded to escape a similar fate. Bullock is likely to play the lead, and casting on the project is underway with Betty Mae Casting. Production is set to start in early August. No location is currently available for the project, but expect the film to venture away from the usual coastal hubs of New York and Los Angeles. – Backstage

In more news coming out of Cannes, Deadline is reporting that Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock has signed on to star in Cash Truck, which is being directed by Jose Wladyka (Manos Sucias, Narcos) from a script by Ethan Erwin, Albert Hughes, and John Hodge.

Inspired by the 2004 French film Le Convoyeur, Cash Truck will see Bullock as Alexa, “an American who has fallen on hard times, and starts a job at a London armored car company that was the recent target of a deadly heist. She works her way into the confidence of the tight-knit crew and we discover that there is much more to Alex than it seems. As she goes to dangerous and morally complicated lengths to pursue her own mysterious agenda, an explosive secret from Alex’s past surfaces propelling the story in shocking, thrilling new directions.”

Anne Hathaway has praised Sandra Bullock for making Ocean’s Eight such a child-friendly set.

The 34-year-old actress, who is mother to 11-month-old Jonathan with husband Adam Shulman, started filming the movie last November (16), when her son was just eight months old.

But Anne had few concerns over how she was going to manage both looking after Jonathan with shooting the film, as star Sandra made it clear she could bring the tot to the set.

“I only have one experience (of resources available to mums in Hollywood) so far, and it’s a movie that stars eight women, four of whom are mothers – which is definitely not the norm,” Anne told Motto magazine. “On Ocean’s Eight, kids were welcome on the set. (Before we started) I got an email from Sandra Bullock saying, ‘Hey, listen, we’re going to make this a really welcoming place for kids. I know you’re a brand-new mom, so don’t be afraid to bring your son. We love kids here.’ Change is going to come, but it’s going to take people like her with the power to make change to demand it.”

Ocean’s Eight, an all-female reboot of the heist films, stars Anne and Sandra alongside Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna and Mindy Kaling, while Matt Damon, Damian Lewis, Dakota Fanning and James Corden are among the other names cast for the movie.

Anne is already preparing herself for the inevitable sexist comments Ocean’s Eight is sure to receive upon release, but has faith that co-stars Sandra and Cate can handle any rude remarks.

“In this movie there are eight women starring, so it may well attract that sort of attention. But good luck to any person who tries to take on Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett because you’re not going to win,” she laughed. – Hollywood.com